Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice
Winter Solstice
Author: Rosamunde Pilcher
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Hardcover
emeraldfire avatar reviewed on
Helpful Score: 3


Elfrida Phipps, once a famous actress on the London stage, retires at age 62 and moves to the sleepy Hampshire village of Dibton. She never anticipates going off with a man. But after a devastating tragedy, her first friend from when she arrived in Dibton, Oscar Blundell - the church organist - asks her for companionship. So, with her brown-and-white dog in tow, Elfrida begins her journey.

What she doesn't realize is that also joining her and Oscar in the rundown Victorian mansion in Scotland, will be Carrie, a young woman with a broken heart recently returned from Australia after ending her affair with a married man. Joining her will be her young teenage cousin Lucy, who Carrie has agreed to look after, when she discovers that her mother and aunt are constantly squabbling. Sam Howard is an American whose wife leaves him for another man. He is a man without a home and without roots, so when his job sends him to Scotland, he jumps at the chance to go.

He falls in love with the lush, craggy landscape and sets his sights on a house. These five very different people - Sam, Carrie, Lucy, Elfrida and Oscar - will form firm friendships that will change all their lives forever. I really enjoyed this book. It was a first time read for me - the writing was beautiful and it flowed along nicely for me. I give it an A+!